No jail in Harrison Township hit-and-run car-bicycle crash

Margaret Fronczak appears with her attorney, Daniel Larin, on Tuesday in Macomb County Circuit Court in Mount Clemens for her sentencing for a hit-and-run crash in which she injured a 17-year-old Harrison Township girl on a bicycle.

A visiting Macomb County judge Tuesday gave virtually the most lenient sentence possible to a woman who hit and seriously injured a 17-year-old girl on a bike with her car and fled the scene. The sentence upset the victim’s step-grandmother and was opposed by the victim.

Margaret Fronczak, 59, of Milford, received time behind bars and only one year probation after pleading guilty to leaving the scene of a serious-injury accident, punishable by up to five years in prison, from visiting Judge Antonio Viviano of Macomb County Circuit Court in Mount Clemens. The collision completely broke Kara Duquet’s legs and her jaw, among other injuries.

Viviano, who was substituting for Judge James Biernat, could have sentenced her up to one year in jail under the sentencing agreement Biernat had with Fronczak.

“I’m very upset,” said Kara’s tearful grandmother, Connie Fournier, moments after the sentencing. “She should have gotten a year in jail. She caused a lot of pain and injury, not just physical pain and not to just Kara but to her whole family.

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“This is just a slap on the fingers.”

Kara did not attend the sentencing; she was at her second day of classes at Macomb Community College.

But in a victim’s impact statement that was read in court she called Fronczak’s request for work-release in jail “a joke.”

“I think she should stay in jail for a year,” she said.

“I was in shock,” said step-grandfather Ken Fournier, describing his immediate reaction to the sentence.

Fronczak, who had no prior record, about 11 p.m. last June 16 struck Kara as she rode her bicycle on Jefferson Avenue in Harrison Township. Fronczak fled but was arrested about a week later after it was discovered she took her damaged Toyota Corolla to a body shop for repair, saying her car was hit in a parking lot.

During the hearing, assistant Macomb prosecutor Michael Servitto vigorously opposed Fronczak’s request that she serve at the Wayne County Jail so she could do work-release near her job in downtown Detroit.

Viviano not only agreed with defense attorney Daniel Larin that she could serve in Wayne County but didn’t set any jail time so it wasn’t necessary. She will serve one year of reporting probation.

Viviano said he could not speculate on what happened the night Kara was hit.

Fronczak does not recall about six hours of that night, including the collision, Larin said. He said she couldn’t have been drunk because she drank only three glasses of wine over several hours, based on comments from a friend who was with Fronczak earlier in the night. He believes she may have suffered some type of medical or mental issue, in the past mentioning a mini-stroke and on Tuesday suggesting blood-glucose problem.

“I don’t know what was going on that night,” Viviano said.

Larin claimed that Fronczak made no attempt to “hide” the incident.

“She didn’t know what happened,” he said.

But Servitto called that claim “disingenuous,” based on her actions and comments at the time.

“Her story was that her car was hit in a parking lot in Lansing, which is active deception,” he said. “We believe the defendant was intoxicated. … The problem was we couldn’t charge her with OUIL (operating under the influence of liquor) because she fled the scene …. We couldn’t test her alcohol level.”

It is believed that Fronczak was the driver of a car that night that was reported by a 911 caller to be weaving between lanes on a Detroit-area freeway.

Her credit card showed she purchased gas near Lansing that night.

Fronczak standing in front of the judge apologized and appeared remorseful.

“I know she has suffered and her family has suffered,” she said. “And I know it was my fault.”

Kara was hit moments after completing her shift busing tables at Terry’s Terrace at Jefferson and Crocker Boulevard and was on her way home a mile away. She was found by restaurant patrons in a nearby ditch.

Kara is still trying to recover from her injuries. She can barely walk and tried working at Wal-Mart part-time but had to quit because she can’t stand for long periods, Fournier said.

Injured days after her graduation as valedictorian from L’Anse Creuse Central High School, she had planned to attend Grand Valley State University in west Michigan last fall.